Councilman Bass - Fish or Fowl?

It’s been more than two months since Bass’ appointment, and a few trends have emerged. True to his word, he’s shown no particular interest in anything and hasn’t pushed any projects. Nor has he contributed much to the debates, but he has made a few comments and from these we can detect some patterns. Bear in mind, the big question was whether or not Bass, a longtime municipal employee, would behave more like a city employee than a city council member. Let's see -

EXPENSIVE IPADS TO BENEFIT THE COUNCIL

One of Bass’s first comments after joining the Council was to enthusiastically push the idea that Council and Commission members needed to have expensive iPads and the City needed to pay for them. We’re talking about high priced iPads, not merely tablets. The idea is that if the Council and Commission members use tablets, this will cut down on the costs of paper (as well as staff time), and the savings will more than pay for the tablets. That made some sense, until you realize that the reading of documents can be adequately done on a $79 tablet and doesn’t need the high power of an expensive iPad. So why is Bass opting for the most expensive option? Is he thinking like a Council member representing the people, or a City employee, which he used to be?Or is he just not thinking?

In addition, Bass voted to continue providing paper copies of agendas even after Council and Commission members got their hot little hands on their expensive iPads, and the paper copies would continue indefinitely. Councilman Nick tried to get him to agree to a 3-month transition period, but Bass voted to have it continue indefinitely. Under these circumstances, where is the savings? Not only will the "savings" disappear, this now becomes a costly exercise.

EXPENSIVE E-FILING TO BENEFIT THE COUNCIL

The next action by Bass that I recall was his vote for the electronic filing of FPPC forms. This will cost the City $10,000 to $14,000 per year, and while there will be some minimal savings in staff time, the only benefit for this project is to make life easier for the Council and Commission members. Indeed, I specifically asked that someone do the math and tell us whether or not this project would save money, which I suspected it would not, but Bass wasn‘t interested in saving money. He didn't need to know.

(See a pattern yet?)

EXTENDING CONTRACT TO BENEFIT CONTRACTOR

More recently, Bass argued forcefully that a 5 year contract for “traffic signal management” should be extended to 7 years. That’s a 40% increase in costs, with no discernable advantage. Moreover, it puts off by 2 years a project that should have been completed 3 years ago, leaving residents of the City with less than 60% of our traffic lights synchronized. Why turn 5 years into 7 years especially on a project as important as this? And where is the concern for the extra costs? Instead, Bass was mostly concerned with making life easier for the traffic signal management company.

URGING RESIDENTS TO ACCEPT POOR PERFORMANCE

Talk about making life easier. At the last Council meeting Bass discouraged citizens for asking that projects be done more quickly. He seemed to accept the fact that projects in Lake Forest take sooo long to be done. For example –

• Traffic light synchronization has been going on for nearly a decade and we are less than 60% of our goal.

• The Sports Park took nearly a decade to complete.

• While other cities that were formed about the same time as we were (Laguna Hills, Rancho, Aliso Viejo) have Civic Centers were are nowhere near ready to even break ground on a Civic Center.

• Etc. etc.

Too many years working for municipalities seems to have given Bass the inclination to look at things from the POV of a city employee. There are enough city employees telling us what we can’t do, what we can’t have, and what we have to wait for. We don’t need apologists on the Council as well. Besides, Mrs. McCullough already occupies that space!

NOT DOING HIS HOMEWORK?

Bass seems nice enough, and he doesn’t fall asleep during meetings, although he does ask some questions which make you wonder whether or not he’s actually read the reports. For example, during the discussion of electronic filing, he apparently didn’t understand the financial arrangements and was prepared to vote an additional $1,000 which wasn’t needed. Again, Bass seems to show a disdain for saving taxpayer money.

ENDORSING CRONYISM

While Bass hasn’t shown any leadership qualities or even any other positive traits, his actions did disturb me at the last City Council meeting, and thus prompted this article. Among the 10 applicants looking to fill a vacant space on the Planning Commission was Bass’ friend of 15 years, Tom Ludden. Bass never revealed this, but it was listed in Ludden’s application where Ludden was required to list any social or financial relationships with Council members. This requirement was put there because the City’s code of ethics specifically requires Council members to avoid compromising their objectivity based on social or financial relationships. Indeed, the code goes even further and requires them not to even “give the appearance” of compromising.

Councilwoman Kathy McCullough did the right thing in acknowledging her long standing social relationship with applicant Marcia Rudolph (something we all knew anyway). McCullough went even further by then indicating that she would not cast her vote for Rudolph even though she thought she was qualified for the position. But Bass was silent, until it came time to vote, and then he cast his vote for his longtime friend, Tom Ludden, without mentioned their social relation - a seeming breach of the City’s code.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Given the truculent times we had in 2013 with the rancor that sometimes consumed Council meetings, Bass’ quiet contributions are welcome. And given Councilwoman McCullough’s penchant to wander down memory lane and spend precious Council time reminiscing, Bass certainly doesn’t add to the problems confronting the Council. But it begins to be clear that he is merely filling a seat. Of course, that’s what he proposed to do, so in that sense, he’s one of the most honest people sitting on the dais. But on a Council where we have had so much controversy about cronyism, insider votes, and the compromising of the City’s code of ethics, Bass has taken a disturbing turn. It seems Bass has gone fishin' and what he caught was the Council's cronyism and disregard for the City's code of ethics.